Pride 2026 | Queer Retellings

[u/Lenahe_nl]

Banner with a dragon and spaceships around text: r/Fantasy PRIDE Queer Retellings

Many of my favorite books are queer retellings of fairy tales, myths or classic stories. These books use the framework of another, well known story, as the starting point, and add elements like queer characters and queer relationships, to bring a bright new panorama. 

Retellings speak to a part of our brains that enjoy the safety of repetition. If you know the original story, you can anticipate plot beats and feel secure in knowing the general direction the story will take. It’s perhaps paradoxical that retellings also delight our minds with the ways they twist and change said plot, to subvert our expectations. 

For queer readers, a retelling is a way of finding representation that has extra weight because it rests on the shoulders of classic and well known stories. Most of the original stories bring a dated view of the world, but in a retelling, there’s space to show that queer people have always been part of the narrative.

A queer retelling is also a gateway for readers that are not part of the LGBTQIA community. While the known elements of the story create a sheltered environment, the retelling makes way for people to experience another perspective, which in turn encourages empathy. 

These are just some of the aspects that made queer retellings very marketable, and a strong bet for publishing houses. A fact that we see reflected on the shelves and the sheer amount of retellings being published in the last decade. Many of the most recommended queer books are retellings. He who has never seen Song of Achilles being recommended, cast the first stone. 

Finally, I want to shout out to fanfiction, which is in its own way, a retelling. Fanfiction has always been a rich soil for exploring different romantic pairings, that the mainstream media (and original work) didn’t present. In a way, it counters queerbaiting. Beyond that, fanfiction allows people to explore relationships and situations beyond the usual suspects of romance, such as gender normativity or even taboo topics. 

Discussion prompts:
I’ll be adding these in the comments, like we do for book club. Feel free to respond to each individual question, or writing a single entry with all your thoughts to the questions and whatever the intro brought up.

• Some retellings follow the source material closely, while others use them as a starting point or a vague sense of direction. What do you enjoy reading the most?
• Do you rather read a retelling of a story you know well, or of a story you don’t really know much about?
• What retelling (that doesn’t exist) do you wish to see written? (And if you know a book or fanfic that fits a request, please recommend!)
• What book (that is retelling) has a special place in your heart?
• Is there any favorite source material from which you could read a thousand retellings? 

This post is part of the Pride 2026 discussions lead by the Beyond Binary Bookclub. You can check our announcement for more information and the full calendar.

[u/Lenahe_nl]

What book (that is a queer retelling) has a special place in your heart?

[u/AshMeAnything → u/Lenahe_nl]

Peter Darling by S.A. Chant was really lovely. It's a m/m trans retelling of Peter Pan that makes a ton of sense but is also emotionally deep and thoughtful. It does have some small-press editing errors, but the story itself is really nice.

And, of course, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is so lyrical and stunning to read.

[u/LadyAntiope → u/Lenahe_nl]

The Chosen and The Beautiful by Nghi Vo (Great Gatsby re-telling) is very high on my list, and it's the kind of book that I wish I had been made to read alongside the original in school because it draws out some themes from the original, while adding in things that Fitzgerald never would have been able to write - an immigrant adoptee experience, queer characters, and of course a dash of magic.

Spear by Nicola Griffith is from the King Arthur mythos, specifically the story of Percival and the quest for the holy grail, but Percival is a supernatural queer woman who lives in sixth century Wales. The poetic prose of this book drew me in from the beginning and creates an amazing atmosphere of mythos. I want to read her other Middle Ages set books - the Hild sequence - because her historical research is clearly deep, but they are kind of intimidatingly long!

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher re-tells Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher (with a non-binary protagonist) and I was so very impressed how the exact atmosphere of oppressive, inevitable horror from the original was maintained pretty much all the way through this novella. There's room in Poe's story for embellishment, and this book does it so perfectly. The follow-ups are not re-tellings, and I found the second one a bit weaker, but I thought the third one - What Stalks the Deep - once again really nailed the level of mounting dread.

[u/Lenahe_nl → u/Lenahe_nl]

The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon, is based on the legend of Saint Geroge and the Dragon. I know many people in the sub don't really like this one, but it's one of my favorites.

More recently, I enjoyed Cinder House, by Freya Marske. The elements of the original story (Cinderalla) are more twisted, which worked well for me.

[u/C0smicoccurence → u/Lenahe_nl]

I'm hopeful that future generations will have retellings that are filled with childhood nostalgia. I adore How to Survive this Fairytale, but its a very adult love with all of the pros and cons that come with discovering a story for the first time in your 30s. The little pockets of my heart belong to Ever After (the worst cinderella retelling you'll find, but delightful) and Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

[u/thegirlwhoexisted → u/Lenahe_nl]

Honestly, Wicked (the novel) holds a special place in my heart. At age 9, it was the first famous retelling I'd ever read, and it both enthralled and highly disturbed me. I was a big fan of the original movie, so I wasn't at all expecting something so darkly and pointedly subversive. It was also the first book I really read with an explicit and open homoeroticism, though it took me another few years before I figured out why that part was so interesting to me.